


Static from a Dying Star

by Arazsya



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e17 Aruba, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 16:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10722948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya
Summary: The part of him that’s still the janitor isn’t really surprised to see Mr Thawne.





	Static from a Dying Star

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason I decided we needed more upsetting Doomworld!Ray fics, so here’s this, based entirely on wild extrapolation from [this gif](http://ruthc93.tumblr.com/post/159003553653/ray-palmer-eobard-thawne-flinch-legends-of). I apologise in advance. Originally posted on tumblr, but I thought I'd stick it up here so all my fic can be in the same place. Title from the Oysterband song "Put out the Lights".

Things have a way of reverting to the mean. The average. The sum of all the values divided by their number. Applied to life, not just to science, Ray had taken it to mean that things would go back to the way that they had always been. It had been a comfort once, but not since he’d spent all those days in the Legion’s timeline, when the norm was cleaning floors and unclogging toilets, interspersed with

_he doesn’t even know where all the bruises came from but there’s a point at which it all goes down to white noise anyway so what does it matter_

things that he’d have bled not to remember.

That’s why the part of him that’s still the janitor isn’t really surprised to see Mr Thawne. He hadn’t _expected_ him, but ever since they had got away from 2017 he’d been half-waiting for the other shoe to drop. But even if there’s no surprise, there are still the other things which he knows far too well. The sudden tightness in his throat, the knotting in his intestines, the feeling that the sky is pressing in on him, that he has to get _out_.

He tries to tell himself that he’s not the man’s

_pet_

janitor anymore, that he’s the Atom, he’s a _Legend_ , but not even his exosuit can cover up the memories. And M- _Thawne_ knows it. How could he not? He’d remade Ray into whatever he’d wanted, and then he’d kept

_Ray flinches every time Mr Thawne touches him and that delights him_

on going. Ray has seen the look on his face enough times to feel it in the backs of his teeth. He knows what it means. He knows what _most_ of Thawne’s expressions mean, he’d learnt them the same way that a dog with a shock collar learns. This one means that Thawne knows who’s in control

_he tries to resign once but that works no better than varying his cleaning routine or apologising or running for the door until he can’t breathe because Mr Thawne always finds him always catches him always stops him_

and that it’s not Ray.

It takes him too long to bring his weapons up. A part of him’s forgotten that he has them, because he didn’t, before, when he’d needed

_he tries not to flinch but he never manages it and Mr Thawne laughs over and over and over_

them. He knows it’s a fatal mistake, and somewhere, he’s glad that his memories of the Legion’s timeline are going to die with him. That the other him won’t have to live through that, won’t have everything that he’d ever valued about himself stripped away, won’t walk through S.T.A.R. Labs always knowing that there was something missing, that it was close, but never being quite able to work out what it was.

He’s not surprised when Mr Thawne tears his heart out of him, either. He thinks, fleetingly, as he falls, that it’s nothing he hasn’t done before.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! And, particular thanks to anyone who leaves comments or kudos - may cats purr at you (if you like cats, if not, may the cats keep a healthy distance) and may your favourite characters not die permanently. If you want to say hi or throw things or anything, I can also be found over at [my tumblr](http://yszarin.tumblr.com).


End file.
